


Case 143: The Adventure Of The Extra Stamp (1897)

by Cerdic519



Series: Elementary 221B [183]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Supernatural
Genre: 221B Baker Street, Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Clothing Kink, Destiel - Freeform, Disguise, F/M, Framing Story, Gay Sex, Infidelity, Inheritance, Johnlock - Freeform, Justice, London, M/M, Marriage, Scotland, The Romans, Threats, Trains, Untold Cases of Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 17:14:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17471648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: ֍ John often found it annoying when people remarked that so many of Sherlock's cases started from the smallest of things. Some did though, and few could have been smaller than this one – a postage stamp.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aely](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aely/gifts).



_[Narration by Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esquire]_

It was totally John's fault that I did not recognize the name brought up to us by the maid that day. Not fifteen minutes before I had been happily finishing my dinner – yes it was bacon and no it was _not_ bacon-again! – when he had given me the full force of those green eyes of his and said that he bet he could distract me before I was done. I had looked at him in disbelief. I mean, come on. Bacon!

I had underestimated the man. He quickly got under the table, pulled down my trousers and was sucking me off like his life depended on it. I had always thought that bacon made me feel so happy but this was.... this was..... oh my Lord!

I was sat on the couch recovering ( _not_ as someone claimed gasping for breath) when John came over from the door.

“Mrs. D'Arcy is here to see us!” he said, frowning deeply.

I stared at him in bewilderment. Clearly the name was supposed to mean something to me but my brain was still not quite fully functional yet. It was still working on less complicated matters such as which way was up.

“Sergeant Baldur's wife”, he reminded me. 

I had quite forgotten that D'Arcy was the sergeant's surname as he had never used it in his time with us. His wife was a patient of John's as was all the sergeant's family; indeed my friend had been particularly busy of late as his good friend Sir Peter Greenwood was away in Scotland for a month with his family and John was standing in for him. He was I knew finding it tiring working full-time again but I had arranged for at least some of the baronet's patients to be dealt with by locums (loci?). 

Although he himself would have been mortified had we raised the subject with him personally, the sergeant was actually descended from royalty, the original Fitzroy D'Arcy having been a son of King Charles the Second by one of his many mistresses. The line had descended to the sergeant's grandfather the wonderfully-named but most unpleasant Mr. Palliser D'Arcy who had been the one to disown his grandson for the heinous crime of joining the Metropolitan Police Service. John also told me that the split had been widened by the fact that the sergeant had been the only issue of his father Fitzroy D'Arcy's first marriage to a Norwegian lady. Said father had remarried to a shrewish female over from the United States and they had had four further children, all almost as bad as she was. 

John was getting really catty in his.... later middle age.

“It must be serious”, I said as my love went to ring for the lady's admission. “She would have gone through the sergeant otherwise. Did you not say that she was pregnant again?”

“Three months gone”, he said. “The poor sergeant is worried because little Bragi's birth was so difficult, yet he is healthy enough now.”

“Eating his parents out of house and home, he said last time he called”, I smiled. There had been a little unpleasantness with the police service trying to not pay the sergeant a bonus a few weeks back and I had had to have Words to make sure that it had happened. Pus a sizeable extra amount for the inconvenience, otherwise there was always the danger that certain newspapers might start inquiring into the nocturnal wanderings of certain prominent married police officers of some fifty-seven years of age. Down Sackville Lane, which was barely a stone's throw from where a certain prominent married police officer of some fifty-seven years of age – possibly even the same one – just chanced to live.

֍

Mrs. D'Arcy was duly shown in and took a seat. She was a beautiful lady and her face clearly showed that she shared her husband's Scandinavian heritage although I knew that she was Danish rather than Norwegian. 

“I hope everything marches well with the sergeant's latest potential new recruit”, I said politely. She smiled at my euphemism

“All is well there”, she said. “But something.... um....”

She broke off and looked appealingly at us. 

“Take your time, Mrs. D'Arcy”, I said reassuringly. “We have had many years of people sitting in that very chair and coming out with the strangest things, so I doubt there is much you could say that would surprise us.”

“I think that Bal may be seeing another woman!”

I promptly took my last comment back. The very idea that Sergeant Baldur (whose portrait should by all rights have featured in the dictionary under 'moral rectitude') might be doing any such thing was totally ridiculous, let alone the fact that his wife was expecting their sixth child. It was utterly impossible!

“What could have made you think such a thing?” I asked, still trying to get over the shock of her claim. She took a deep breath.

“After the dear doctor examined me last week”, she said, “I went home to write to my sister over in Bergen. She knows how difficult my last birth was and she is a natural worrier, so every month I send her a telegram and then write to her.”

“Why both?” I asked.

“Telegrams are expensive”, she said, “so I always send a short message 'all is well'. Then I usually write at least four full pages to her, often more knowing that it will take some days to reach her. We are twins you see, so we are very close.”

She took another deep breath and sipped her sherry.

“We usually keep two or three stamps in the small ashtray as neither of us smokes, but when I went there to get one they were all gone. I asked Sarah my maid and she said that she knew Bal had had a number of letters to send off the day before so he must have used the last of them. However I knew that he always kept one spare stamp in his bedside cabinet upstairs just in case, so I decided to borrow that thinking I could easily buy some myself and replace it. I opened the drawer and... and....”

She shuddered but continued.

“There was a letter from a woman!” she said. “Calling herself 'Sally' and saying how much she.... you know. And there was an envelope with it with an Uxbridge postmark!”

I winced.

“Posted last week?” I guessed. She nodded.

“What is it?” John asked.

“The sergeant had to go over to the Uxbridge station last week on a case”, I said. “He had to spend the night there.”

This did not look good. But I knew the sergeant; there just had to be another explanation. Perhaps... yes.

“I know that this may seem like a totally irrelevant question”, I said, “but has your husband had any dealings with his own relations as of late?”

She was clearly surprised at my question but shook her head.

“They wish for nothing to do with him”, she said firmly. “He has not spoken to them since we were married; they did not even bother to inform him when either his father or grandfather passed, as you are doubtless aware the latter did recently.”

And not a loss to humanity in either case, I thought not at all bitchily. I was becoming as bad as.... John.

“Mrs. D'Arcy”, I said slowly, “it is my belief that your husband is as honest and faithful as he seems. I do not believe that letter. I think that it was planted there. Who might have access to your bedroom?”

She moved to answer but hesitated.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Bal had the room painted only this month”, she said. “They finished last week. We had had a small problem with the ceiling but he decided that the room needed a new coat of paint so we had three men in to do it. The firm they came from was quite reputable, he said.”

“Every man has his price”, I said. “Plus it is quite likely that he would not find that letter before your unfortunate advent, given the mess that some gentlemen are wont to make of their storage arrangements.”

John coughed for some reason. I stared at him suspiciously but continued.

“And we must not forget the servants who also had access to it”, I said. “You mentioned a maid. Do you have anyone else?”

“Only the gardener, Peter”, she said. “He does not usually come into the house but Bal does not mind if he takes his elevenses in the conservatory where the chairs are more comfortable. He is a good fellow.”

I thought for a moment.

“Your former maid left recently?” I asked. She looked at me in surprise.

“Yes”, she said. “Mary came into a small inheritance from an aunt up in the Lakes, a cottage I think, and she had to go there within a month to claim it. I was lucky to get Sarah; you know how difficult it is to find good staff these days.”

Indeed, I thought. This was beginning to make sense.

“I shall have to undertake some research into all this”, I said. “Even with my offices it will take some time. Mrs. D'Arcy, I am sure that sooner or later there will be a second letter about your husband's actions, purporting to come either from this 'Sally' or some other female. When it happens, I wish you to record the circumstances of its discovery and then come straight round to us.”

“But you are sure that Bal is innocent?” she asked.

“I am absolutely certain!” I said firmly.

֍

“Are you?” John asked, thankfully only once our visitor had gone. “As you said, every man can be tempted.”

“Not the sergeant”, I said, trying to still the small and annoying voice at the back of my mind that was also wondering just that. “I am going to ask Miss Bradbury for her assistance. I have a feeling that the sergeant's family is involved in this somehow, but I do not see how as yet. Then I shall go to the gymnasium and meet Luke.”

John nodded and picked his book up. 

“I will be back after lunch”, I said. “And I shall bring you a pie.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

“Which you will sit and the table and try to eat while I am doing to you what you did to me this morning.”

I left him still gasping. I was so bad!

Or I soon would be!

֍


	2. Chapter 2

Some hours l was possibly smirking a tad more than was seemly, mainly due to the broken shell of a man lying on the couch and letting out the occasional whimper. I had made him wear the Roman costume which had certainly sped my ministrations and he had come three times before the end of his first slice. He had eventually had to leave half of it – I had made John Watson _leave pie!_ \- and the look of mixed ecstasy and exhaustion on his face was... borderline satisfying.

With another pained moan he eased himself upright and stared woozily at me.

“You are going to kill me through sex one of these days”, he moaned. “I need to use the bathroom.”

I sniggered but generously helped him across what must have seemed a massive distance to the toilet and left the door slightly ajar just in case he collapsed while in there. After a while there was the sound of flushing and a tap running, then silence.

“Sherlock!”

I bit back another snigger, but dutifully went and fetched the invalid who glared suspiciously at me as I helped him the five thousand miles back to the couch. Once he was seated and comfortable I sat next to him. There may or may not have been some of that manly embracing thing involved.

“Miss Bradbury was efficient even by her standards”, I said. “I know the motive for the crime in this case even if I have not yet established the means.”

“What crime?” he asked. “Infidelity?”

“Sergeant Baldur is as true as he looks”, I said. “His family on the other hand are a bunch of villains and little wonder it was that they did not like his joining the police service. His own blood is behind this foul attempt to destroy his marriage.”

“But why?” he asked. “He was disinherited. There is no motive, surely?”

“That was what seemed to be the case”, I said. “But fortunately Miss Bradbury has seen this sort of thing somewhere before so she knew where to look. Do you remember telling me the story of how the D'Arcys started?”

“Charles the Second”, he said. “I thought that you were only listening to be kind.”

I had been and I had had to get Miss Bradbury to find it all out for me again. But I loved him too much to tell him that.

“The family history in this case was the clue to the whole thing”, I said side-stepping his observation gracefully (in my opinion). “The main land-grant to the family from that prodigious monarch – sadly for England as things turned out, never on the right side of the blanket – was a huge estate west of the city of Edinburgh. Mostly just farmland so the family did not bother much with it, but it included the boyhood home of the original Fitzroy D'Arcy and he was determined that it would stay in the family one way or the other.”

“And someone is using the other?” he asked. I nodded.

“That nobleman stipulated in his will that the estate, known as the West Fields, would go to the first of the next generation of D'Arcy's to produce four male heirs”, I said. “It is a form of entail so despite Sergeant Baldur's family disinheriting him they cannot stop him from inheriting it if he has four sons. And with Bragi's arrival he has three.”

“Wait a minute”, John said. “Did he not have an uncle who was older than his awful father?”

“He did”, I said. “An even better name as well, Mr. Proudfoot D'Arcy. But the Fates were it seemed determined to have their way. He had eight children before he died but only three were sons. Two of those, Paris and Priam – clearly lack of historical knowledge was a thing in the family along with the strange taste in names – had five children each them but only two in each case were sons. Mr. Priam D'Arcy died three years back and his brother passed two days into this year.”

John immediately got it.

“And the rules say the fellow inheriting has to be married!” he said, “which is why they are trying to split up poor Sergeant Baldur and his wife. To stop them getting that land.”

“Not just any land, either”, I said. “In the years since the grant was made, Edinburgh has expanded right up to the edge of the Fields and is starting to work its way around them. They could be sold to the city for a small fortune.”

“But why does the current owner not do that then?” John asked. “And who is it?”

“Only someone with four sons can hold the full ownership of the Fields that is required to sell them”, I explained. “The sergeant's grandfather Mr. Palliser D'Arcy qualified as such but there were nothing like as valuabe when he died, after which they were placed into a legal trust.”

“And now they are going to the one fellow that they all hate!” John chuckled.

“Provided we stop their little scheme”, Sherlock said. “Which I intend to do as loudly as possible.”

He looked at me in surprise.

֍

I was fortunate in having enough contacts within the Metropolitan Police Service to oblige them in assisting me in this matter, although to be far that was part helpfulness and probably a larger part terror at just how much I might tell the papers about what I knew about them. I would not have done that unless really provoked, but they did not need to be told as much.

A few days later Sergeant Baldur had to once more go over to the Uxbridge Station as they had somehow made a complete mess of the case he had thought to have sorted. He of course informed his wife and she came to tell us, looking very worried. I smiled at her reassuringly.

“Be of good cheer”, I said. “Did you do as I asked?”

“Yes”, she said looking puzzled, “but surely you cannot think...”

“Let us not be concerned with what I _think_ ” I said firmly. “If all goes well then tomorrow you will _know_ that your husband is as good and true as he seems. And best of all he can be kept in ignorance of this sorry business, or at least the worst part of it.”

“You will tell him something?” she asked.

“I shall not have to”, I said. “He will tell me!”

She looked at me in confusion. So did John, which was so wrong of him. He knew that when he looked so cute and adorable like that our evening in was only going to end one way.

֍

Indeed it did!

֍

On Sunday I and what was left of John once more decamped to Paddington Station for a train westwards, this time a small branch-line one which stopped at all stations to Uxbridge. John spent the journey telling me all about the role our destination had played in the English Civil War while I imagined him as a Puritanical Roundhead getting seduced by some devious manipulative Cavalier until he was begging for release. 

I wondered if our local 'specialist shop' had got any more costumes in of late. They had said that they could order in for me if I wanted....

֍

“I am expecting to meet someone here”, I said. “I am sorry we had to leave in such a hurry but Miss Bradbury said her man following our target had said she had left by a cab, which I had not expected. But I still expect them to arrive here some time after us.”

“Who?” he asked.

“Mrs. D'Arcy's maid Sarah.”

He looked at me as if I were mad.

_”The maid?”_

“Indeed”, I said. “You will see more when she gets here.”

He knew from that that I would say no more and pouted most adorably. I was beginning to suspect he knew full well such a thing made me yearn to take him there and then, and whether or not he got the information he would at last get something out of me. But I was stronger than that.

Besides, there was still the journey back!

We found a decent enough restaurant ('decent' as defined by John; it served pie) where I wanted to be and sat down outside. It was a pleasant spring day and the small town was quiet as it was the Sabbath. I guessed that the place was not supposed to be serving food on such a day but no-one seemed to be objecting, least of all someone already on his second slice yet was still giving me a quivering lip as he looked at mine (which I had only ordered for him anyway).

After a little time we saw our quarry alight from a carriage in the high street only a short distance from us. John frowned.

“How can _she_ afford a carriage?” he asked. “She is only a maid.”

“Is she?” I smiled. “Watch, my friend.”

He watched. The lady took her bag and disappeared into the ladies' public toilets opposite. A few minutes passed and a flame-haired woman emerged from the block, touching up her gloss-red lips. I heard more than one disapproving tut from the ladies around us.

There were three policemen standing talking to each other a little way along the pavement and I recognized the form and distinctive black hair of Sergeant Baldur with his back to us, his long locks hanging down almost as untidily as my own defaulted to (I did _try_ to brush it every day despite what John said!). The woman sauntered up to her target and boldly grabbed the sergeant from behind before pulling him round and into a smothering kiss. Then she screamed and almost dropped him onto the pavement.

It was _not_ Sergeant Baldur!

֍


	3. Chapter 3

It was a short time later and we were in a small interview room in Uxbridge Police Station. Sergeant Baldur (the real one) had I knew left the town that evening, hopefully unaware of what had happened. The flame-haired Sarah sat opposite us looking defiant.

“You have no reason to hold me here!” she said firmly.

“Assaulting a police officer?” I said mildly. “I have to say that most judges I know would accept that as just cause, especially given as it was done in front of two other officers of the law.”

I had her there and she knew it.

“Who is this?” John asked bewilderedly.

“Sarah”, I said calmly. “Or that is one of her names.”

“So clever, aren't you?” she sneered.

I smiled dangerously at her. She shifted uneasily in her seat.

“We are, _Miss Anne Straab_ ”, I said, enjoying the way that her face fell at that. “The courts may look askance at kissing an unwilling police officer on the streets of a Middlesex town, but I rather think that they will take a much harsher line over an attempt to break up a gentleman's marriage.”

“What makes you think some plod is a gentleman?” she sniffed.

I sat back.

“I know all”, I said. “This vile little ramp began last January with the death of one Mr. Paris D'Arcy. His death was seemingly of little consequence to most people but to his cousins it suddenly offered up a way out of some rather difficult problems. In particular to Mr. Pericles D'Arcy whose wife Elizabeth is a friend of yours, which was how you were brought in on this vile ramp.”

“My sources revealed that the sergeant's half-siblings were each in some financial difficulty”, I went on. “The death of their cousin before he had the chance to inherit the land known as the West Fields” - I caught her flinch at that name although she tried to hide it - “proffered a way out. But there was a problem, to wit the prodigious sergeant who with three boys already was likely to fulfil the inheritance requirements by producing a fourth son before any of his brethren could so do.”

“There was however a possible way out. Ironically when one considers the licentiousness of the Stuart age, the rules of the inheritance were such that the beneficiary had to be still married to his wife when son number four was born. If the sergeant's marriage could be broken up then he would be debarred from inheriting and his brethren would still have a chance to get the land.”

“I asked the sergeant's wife one thing which pointed me in the right direction, and it concerned _you_ , madam. At the start of the year her then-maid came into a sudden and unexpected inheritance of her own and left, and she came to employ you. You were as they say, the 'plant'; doubtless your employers paid your predecessor off. It was your job to to ensure that if there was another pregnancy then the marriage was ended as soon as possible. You planted that fake letter in your master's bedside cabinet and then hid the spare stamps so your mistress would use the one that she knew was in there. I am sure that if we test the letter for fingerprints we shall find yours, which I doubt you will be able to explain.”

The siren folded her arms and glared at me. She was not the least but sorry for her actions and I was not the least bit surprised at that.

“Knowing what you had planned I set up this little scene”, I said. “And now you have a choice, madam.”

“What?” she said, looking uneasy for the first time.

“You can stand trial for assaulting a police officer, for one thing”, I said, silently blessing that John kept his mouth shit over the obvious flaw in that statement. And of course for aiding and abetting fraud and the atempted break up of a gentleman's marriage. Altogether I dare say you are looking at several years inside even with a good lawyer, which you will not be able to afford.”

“How can you know that?” she demanded. “I might be a millionairess for all you know, Mr. Clever Clogs.”

“You might”, I said, “but I doubt that any of the sergeant's 'family' who employed you will help you now. Indeed, I am sure that once they become aware of your capture they will be employing a good lawyer themselves to paint them as the innocent noblemen duped by an evil siren who wanted to destroy a rich and honourable family.”

“Nothing noble or honourable about those useless toffs”, she snorted. 

“Although there is always the danger”, I said silkily, “that your trial _may_ just happen to get presided over by a judge who takes a much harsher view of such things. Judge Martin Edwards for example, whose own son was cuckolded most publicly in similar circumstances. If by some terrible, ahem, 'mischance' it somehow transpires that _he_ gets allocated your trial, then I doubt that even a good breakfast before sentencing would get you any change out of a decade. Maybe even two!”

She had gone pale. Good.

“You got any options?” she said.

“By another of those strange coincidences there is a newspaper journalist visiting this station”, I said. “Now, if you were to talk to him and portray your own half of the story _before_ your employers can get theirs out – well, we would be talking social disgrace all round but at least it might put you in a stronger position. And perhaps you might then not be quite so likely to get a less lenient judge.”

She scowled at me. She knew quite well that I had her. Good again.

“Get him in here then”, she snapped.

֍

“That was a _little_ bit unethical”, John smiled as we waited for our train at Uxbridge Station. “Was the fellow even a police officer?”

I shook my head.

“Three actor friends of mine, one who was able to turn a passable similarity to the sergeant into a much better one”, I said. “Thankfully those long black locks of his are quite distinctive and I got one of the others to call him 'Mr. Baldur, sir' just as she was coming up. Thankfully she did not notice that none of them were actually at the station.”

He shook his head at me but smiled. Our train clanked to a halt at the platform and we got into a first-class compartment even though we would have to wait for the engine to run round before departure. He quirked an eyebrow at me when he saw me jamming the door locked.

“Again?” he grinned.

“Oh yes”, I said. “Again.”

And I took the vibrator out of my pocket. I honestly thought that he was going to have a seizure.

“You had that in your pocket all this time?” he gasped. “In a police station of all places?”

“It has been everywhere”, I smiled, “except one place. Trousers off, John.”

֍

Maybe I might buy him a walking-stick for his next birthday, as he had to have a sit-down at Paddington before making the trek out to the cab ride home.

The very bumpy cab ride home! I was so bad!

֍

_Postscriptum: Six months later Sergeant Baldur and his wife were blessed with another son whom they called Lothur. Seven days after the babe's arrival his father was informed that he was the inheritor of a large part of the County of Midlothian. Sad to say the city council in Edinburgh tried to short-change my friend over his valuable holdings but I made sure that they failed, and as a result he was able to buy the house next door to his own and create a large family dwelling - which he then proceeded to fill with an even larger family. As I said to John, some men really are quite insatiable._

_I have no idea why he looked at me like that._

֍


End file.
